The Mining Riddle of the Canadian Northwest

COLONEL DREW was introduced by the President, MAJOR BAXTER.

COLONEL DREW: Mr. Chairman and Members of The Empire Club: I speak to you today with somewhat mixed emotions. I am flattered that you have been willing to come to hear me, after seeing me so often in the past year and a half; and I also think it a rather novel experience to be in this place without the necessity of introducing the speaker. I also have another advantage today and I really appreciate it for the first time. Sometimes when a rather prominent visiting speaker was coming, I would thumb busily through "Who's Who" to find out what I could about him, in introducing him I would say what I hoped anal thought was expected and then sometimes got rather a shock when we heard what was said. I have the advantage of knowing, for the first time in this position, exactly what you are going to get.

In discussing the mining riddle of the Canadian Northwest I refer, of course, particularly to the area around Great Bear Lake. Perhaps, my mining friends will say that once you have found metal there is no riddle, but there definitely is. Do not for a moment think that I am in any way reflecting on that incomparable optimism which seems to be a part of the mining enterprise and the mining game. That optimism, in the face of tremendous hazards and tremendous difficulties and' many disappointments, has produced that vast wealth that has done so much to stabilize this country during the economic storm. (Applause.)

And, in saying that I would like to take this opportunity of paying tribute, while I am speaking, to one man who has, perhaps, done more than anyone in this country, to develop that enthusiasm and that is the Honourable Charles McCrea. (Applause.)

You may very well question my technical qualifications to discuss the subject of mining. f claim none. I speak to you as a layman who became somewhat curious about an area whose name was on everybody's tongue, but about which most people to whom I spoke knew very little. I give you a layman's impressions and only a layman's impressions of what I saw and of what as a layman, seemed to me to be the solution for the future. When I talk to geologists, I immediately become hopelessly befogged in learned descriptions of the sedimentary or volcanic construction of the rocks on the shores of Great Bear Lake and long terms flowed from their lips with the same familiarity as they- do from a Doctor when he is describing some simple complaint. I couldn't tell whether to answer "Yes" or "No". When I talked to mining men who have been on the ground, there was no doubt at all. The answer was "Yes". In their enthusiasm the difficulties of transportation and climate were immediately dwarfed by the supreme fact that metal was there.

You, perhaps, have had the same difficulty and for that reason I have accepted the invitation to ive you my impressions for what they are worth. Ing giving the impressions and in qualifying them as merely the impressions of a layman, may I suggest that there is every reason why a layman should try to understand technical problems of this nature. Perhaps no country in the world has so many costly monuments to our allowing the technical experts to direct the course of the uniformed but ever optimistic Canadian public.

Until three years ago, Great Bear Lake was to most of us a name, vaguely associated with the adventures of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the romance of the early explorers of the far Northwest. The last edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica merely tells us that it is an extensive stretch of fresh water filled with fish and whose shores abound with game. Today, however, the name of Great Bear Lake is known throughout the world, sometimes, accurately; sometimes, very inaccurately. But it is known as the place where there have been discoveries of silver, gold, copper and, perhaps most important of all, pitchblende, which gives the radium that is now doing so much in the cure of cancer.

While the enormous wealth of the mineral deposits on the east shore of the lake cars no longer be in doubt, the important question of transportation still remains to be solved and the answer to that riddle is of the utmost importance to everyone in Canada, because it must be remembered that this great mineral area does not belong to any province but to every one in this country because of the fact that it is in the North West Territory. Its distance from organized rail transportation and the extremely severe climate do present a real problem. Because of that distance there are some people who still seem to doubt that the place even exists. I can assure you that it does exist but that it is also very far away.

We Canadians are rather inclined, I think, to be somewhat uncertain about the geography of our own Northland, and Great Bear Lake has been until recently, so relatively an unimportant part of that vast area, that it is, perhaps, not surprising, and I hope you will forgive me if I use one or two figures to try and emphasize where Great Bear Lake really is, because they do play an important part in understanding this problem.

I certainly confess that before I went there I was extremely vague about its location, in spite of having looked at it on the map. I was extremely vague about what the country was like and the questions I have been asked certainly indicate that many others are just as vague.

Without an understanding of that, there is no riddle; there is no problem. It lies, as you probably all know, a thousand miles slightly west of north of Edmonton, Alberta: It is very much larger than either Lake Ontario or Lake Erie and extends for some fifty miles into the:,, Arctic Circle It is exactly 1600 miles farther north than we are here in Toronto and its distance in relation to the mining areas of Ontario which give us some basis of comparison, may best be appreciated when I say that it is 1300 miles farther north than our own silver area of Cobalt. Cameron Bay, which is the post office, the air and water terminal and trading centre for the mining district which has grown up there, is just about thirty miles from the Arctic Circle itself, and more than 125 miles farther north than Dawson City in the Yukon, which to most of us has always seemed pretty far north. We think of Churchill on the Hudson Bay as fairly far north, and when we either praise or condemn the building of the railway to that point, we at least think of it as just about the limits of the possibility of industrial development, but Churchill is 525 miles farther south than Great Bear Lake.

There is a wonderful romance in the development of this area. Nearly two hundred years ago, word of rich mineral deposits in that area came out through the Hudson's Bay Company traders, through the stories of the Indians, and in 1770 Samuel Hearne was sent by the Hudson's Bay Company to see if there was anything in these stories. In 1771, he found the copper deposits on the Copper Mine River and he did describe on the shore of an unnamed lake, rich mineral deposits,, probably those discovered since that time. Ever since his trip there has been interest in that area, but transportation difficulties were so great that the possibility of going and testing the accuracy of the reports was comparatively small for most people. It was not until aeroplanes began to open the north in 1929 that the history of the north was changed and these stories became the reality they are today.

You doubtless, all remember the story of the discovery, or the last discovery, of that mining area but it is worth repeating. You will remember that Gilbert LaBine had flown to the mouth of the Sloan River on Hunter Bay in search of the copper deposits that have been found there, in the hope of finding other minerals in that proximity He staked certain claims but was not very optimistic about their prospects. He was picked up by Captain Punch Dickens of the Canadian Airways in September, 1929, and flew south to Fort Rae before the freezeup. As he was flying south along the shore about 30 miles below Sloan River, he saw a discoloration on the surface of the rock that suggested to him a possibility of richer mineral deposits than he had seen farther north and he located as accurately as he could, this spot, because the maps at that time were very uncertain and extremely vague as to shoreline. He continued to Fort Rae and early in the following year he set out by dog team and made the find at the point where he saw the discoloration, which is now the Eldorado Mine.

This was the beginning of the feverish exploration and mining development of that area. We have heard the expression, time and time again, "cracking open the frozen north". It is the aeroplane in Canada that has cracked open that north to an extent that is scarcely yet realized in the older settled parts of Canada. Not only did the aeroplane make possible the discovery of that great mineral wealth but they also made possible the rapid development that has taken place since that time and with them have gone other things that have made life in the north an entirely different experience than it formerly was. With them, of course, have gone the radio in order to control the direction of the machines and to give the necessary weather reports and with that also has gone news from the outside world, and also has gone the ordinary radio sets which pick up the broadcasts from different points in the north.

How entirely different life in the north is was best illustrated, I thought, by an experience I had on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. We arrived up there; during the evening I met the two men at the very powerful government radio station. We had only been in conversation a very short time when one of the fellows said to me, "What do you know about Bobjo?" I asked him what on earth he was interested in Bobjo for up there and he said, "We get the daily mining and other stock reports from Ottawa and rebroadcast by short wave lengths throughout the Arctic. We occasionally take a flier in stocks here". I asked him how it was done and he said that he had facilities for sending out messages over a limited time every day. He had a bank account in, Ottawa and when he decides that the time has come for a flurry, he wires his instructions to Ottawa and the job is done. Certainly, the thought of a day to day following of the stock market on the coast of the Arctic Ocean was a very different picture from that of the days when it took at least a year to get in and a year to get out from that particular point.

In 1931, following these discoveries, the Canadian Airways established wireless stations all through the north country at strategic refuelling points. The rapid growth of air transportation since that time can best be illustrated by the figures of mail and express carried. In 1931, only two years ago, the Canadian Airways, alone, and there are other small operating companies, carried 138,000 pounds of mail and express into the north land. In 1932, last year, that had increased to 474,000 pounds, an increase of more than 240 per cent in the year. While the figures are not yet available for 1933, I am satisfied that the increase will be equally striking. Another transportation company flew in five tons of mining material in five days to Great Bear Lake. Similar feats have now become a commonplace in that north country.

I think, possibly, I might best give you an idea of what it is like going to Great Bear Lake today by simply describing the experience I had in arriving there. The trip from Edmonton to Great Bear Lake is so comfortable and so safe that it is extremely difficult to realize, even when you have been there, how utterly wild the country really is and that up to four years ago a visit to any part of that area involved tremendous hardships and physical effort.

And when I say "safe", I mean safe. The Canadian Airways from the very figures I have given you, will seem to be carrying on a tremendous activity in that country in the north. Other transport companies are keeping pace with them and yet, in all that commercial transportation during the past few years, not a single passenger's life has been lost by any of the companies operating in that vast country. (Applause.) Surely that is the best possible evidence of the safety of this means of transportation, and this was over a vast stretch of country, far from ideal from the flying point of view.

From Edmonton, first of all you fly north about 300 miles to Fort McMurray at the junction of the Athabaska and Clearwater Rivers. That is the real starting point of the air activity to the north because there is rail communication to a place called Waterways, which adjoins Fort McMurray.

I can not vouch for the accuracy of the story I am told that the reason this rail line which goes some 400 miles from Edmonton to Waterways and then stops about two miles short of Fort McMurray, is that there is some provision that until the line is completed double freight rates can be charged. Consequently, the line will not be completed until it is definitely asked for. I cannot vouch for that story although the inhabitants definitely state that it is true.

At Waterways you see a tremendously stimulating sight. There is certainly no more active air centre on the continent today than this little northern town of Fort McMurray. Along the short strip of water that joins the Clearwater and the Athabaska are constructed wharves, ware houses, offices, machine shops and all the incidental necessities of a heavy transportation system. In that town there is now an air community and some sixteen machines or more are operating from that point to the north and the pilots, the mechanics, the ground crews and their wives make an interesting and a very vivid community. It is almost like a military outpost. The spirit these people show is the spirit of detached posts anywhere on the frontiers of civilization.

At Fort McMurray you are getting fairly far north. I found that the people flying out of there had constructed excellent tennis courts and when they are not flying or otherwise working they play a good deal of tennis and other games for which they have made provision. I think that it is safe to say that out of that airport are operating the greatest pilots in the world today. That may seem a rather unrestrained statement but I know of no place in the world where pilots must face the variety of circumstances that they do over that long stretch from Fort McMurray to the Arctic Ocean, and varying from the hot weather of the summer to a climate of 60 degrees or more below zero in the winter. The only holiday they get and the only time their families see many of them is during the freeze-up in the fall and the break-up in the spring when they have to wait to change from skiis to pontoons.

In Fort McMurray aircraft are just as much a part of the activity of that community as the ships are of a seaport. There, the people see the aircraft going out on daily business, carrying freight and supplies and passengers to the north and to them, transportation by air is no longer a doubtful means of transportation.

I left Fort McMurray about ten o'clock in the morning with a pilot who, I think, is the most vivid character flying in the North,, Captain "Wop" May. Our first hop was to Fort Fitzgerald on the Slave River. We flew north along the Athabaska flying, of course, with pontoons and 150 miles north we came to Lake Athabaska which is considerably larger than Lake Ontario or Lake Erie. As we passed over the end of the lake, we saw to the right the old Indian village of Chipewayan which has an extremely interesting historic background. A little over two hours from the time we left Fort McMurray, we were at Fort Fitzgerald. This is the northern end of the water transportation from the end of rail. From Fort Fitzgerald to Fort Smith, a distance of about fifteen miles, the rapids are not passable by river boat. Flatbottomed, stern wheeled steamers make a weekly trip during the open season from Waterways to Fort Fitzgerald, carrying freight, passengers and supplies. They are unloaded there and carried over land by quite a good road by truck and motor car to Fort Smith, fourteen miles farther north,, and there reloaded on another ship which makes the trip down the balance of the Slave River across Slave Lake, down to the MacKenzie, to the mouth of the river and the Arctic Ocean.

These boats do present one of the interesting parts of this riddle to which I have referred. They are old steamers, burning wood, shoving one, two, or sometimes, three scows in front of them, carrying in that way, up to 270 tons of freight and sixty passengers, a capacity for passengers which, incidentally, is never strained: These boats are undoubtedly far from efficient. They did the job that was necessary before the mining area opened but they are certainly not adequate for the task now being imposed upon them.

I examined the freight in a boat called "The Northland Echo" which I saw at Fort Fitzgerald, just unloading, and it was a fair example of the difference between air transportation and that method which has been used in the past. On this boat were a tremendous number of boxes of mining equipment of one kind and another, destined for Great Bear Lake. I reached Great Bear Lake within a comparatively few hours of that time but those supplies which were on that boat could not possibly have reached the lake for another four or five weeks.

One rather interesting sidelight on the modernizing effect of air transportation was furnished by a visit to a local restaurant in the Indian settlement. Over the small restaurant was a very large and brilliantly painted sign: "I, Moire, The Place Like Home". It was not exactly like home but the food was excellent and having refuelled both ourselves and the machine we started for Fort Rae, some 350 miles farther north. Again, you fly along the Slave River to Great Slave Lake and then on across the eastern end of Slave Lake to Fort Rae at the north. That part of the trip was as uninteresting and uninviting as one can imagine. It is a barren, bleak country with scrub trees and innumerable small patches of water, a great deal of muskeg. It is a country that never scan possibly support population of any kind, except they scattered habitation of trappers that now exists.

When we arrived at Fort Rae we saw there an interesting example of the way in which the radio controls the air activity in the north. That was the only delay that I experienced in some 9,000 miles of flying. When we, put down there a very severe electrical storm was developing in front of us. The pilot went and got reports of conditions along the route and found that the storm centered all along the route we were going to take. The storm then seemed to be turning to west and farther south and hour by hour, one machine after another came in from different points through the north and put down at this little harbour at Fort Rae. By midnight there were nine machines in this small harbour in the north which, a few years ago, was visited only occasionally by white men.

There we saw a rather interesting evidence of the primitive nature of the north. The Indians were there for the celebration of their "Treaty Day" and these people had come from an area of four or five hundred miles to collect annual "treaty money" and really to make it something of a reunion. I was rather interested in the chiefs of the different tribes. There was an old chief who looked like a cross between a doorman at a hotel and an admiral of the navy. He wore a very vivid blue uniform, with gold on his lapels, with a double row of brass buttons and red stripes dowry his pants, a blue band on his hat with a lot of gold braid on it; around his neck, a chain at the end of which was suspended a silver medallion, presented to the chiefs who actually signed the treaty with the government at the time the tribes gave up any property rights they might have in the northland. He was about eighty years of age without a gray hair on his head. He was the only vigorous man among them--they were really a rather miserable crowd, physically. He was the busiest man there. There were some six or seven hundred gathered there and he must have travelled forty or fifty miles to make sure that everyone saw him and saw the silver medallion which he wore and of which he was evidently very proud. I was assured by Dr. Bouget that the Dogrib Tribe of which the chief was a member, was the purest tribe in Canada today. I went over to find his name and I found that he was entered in the book as Chief Murphy. I believe the actual name is Monthui, but one can guess the nationality of the man who first entered his name in that book.

Leaving Fort Rae, you fly directly north over country very largely mountainous on to Great Bear Lake. That is the most interesting part of the thousand mile trip by air. The approach to Great Bear Lake, I think, is one of the most beautiful sights anyone will ever see. Having flown over a rather barren country, you come to these great rugged hills along the east coast and as you come down toward the lake, indented by great inlets with rocks rising, sometimes 1500 and 1700 feet from the water, you see beyond the vast body at that time completely covered with a shining sheet of ice. Beautiful, but also a very definite part of the riddle to which I refer. It was early in July and the ice had only left the inlets and scallops along the shore of the lake, but the body of the lake was still a solid sheet of ice.

We put down at Cameron Bay which is the centre of the activity in that north country. There, of course, we found the government post office, managed by the postmaster Captain Jerry Murphy, whom everybody knows in the north country and there was a very definite sign of activity everywhere around. Wooden huts were going up, the townsite was laid out, the government radio station is now established, and there the Anglican and Roman Catholic missions were established this summer and in every way it was a thriving mining community.

From there I visited the various mining properties that are now in process of development. Naturally, to the visitor, the original discovery, the Eldorado, is the most interesting because by virtue of its earlier discovery it is farther advanced. I went over the property and through the underground workings, about a thousand feet at that time, and I saw the various surface workings. One thing that interested me very much was the fact that when twelve o'clock came a whistle blew and the workmen laid down their tools and went for luncheon, very much as they do here in Toronto. At the same time Mr. Labine and I went over for lunch and, I am satisfied that the well prepared meal today didn't compare with the excellent meal of salmon steaks I had with him that day at the Eldorado Mine. There is,, of course, the fact of climate and appetite involved which has a bearing on the subject.

One does not need to be a mining engineer in that country to see rich mineral deposits in several properties being developed in that area. That is only the answer to the first part of the riddle. Mineral wealth undoubtedly exists but it must be sold. True, finished radium has been sold from the plant at Port Hope through the Ontario Government and is now being sold throughout the world. This is only one of the minerals and its very rarity makes it almost certain that few of the properties can hope to have pitchblende in commercial quantities.

Before the vast mineral resources of that area can be converted into Canadian dollars, cheaper and more efficient methods of transportation must be developed. Two means are now available. One is by water, across Great Bear Lake, after the ice is broken and on down the Great Bear River to the Mackenzie, up the Mackenzie to Great Slave Lake, across Great Slave Lake to Great Slave River and over the fourteen mile portage from Fort Smith to Fort Fitzgerald, on by boat from Fort Fitzgerald to Waterways and thence by train to whatever point the goods are to be shipped.

It is rather interesting that freight rates, since competition from airways has developed, have dropped to about one fifth of what they were.

The other course is to ship by air. In the case of pitchblende this is possibly practical; in the case of the other minerals, certainly not yet.

There are many other suggestions as to the solution of that difficulty. I have seem as a suggested solution the extension of the Peace River Railway. Also, when in Edmonton on the way back, I saw enthusiastic suggestions that the unemployed should be put on a road making scheme so goods could be carried in and out by motor. So far as the road scheme is concerned, I am satisfied that it is utterly impracticable. So far as the railway scheme is concerned, I think people will forget, even in the neighborhood of that country, that the Great Bear Lake itself is a very long way from the Peace River country and a railway would have to be built over a thousand miles of just as forbidding country as you could imagine.

Another suggestion is to build a light railway from Cameron Bay to Fort Rae, a distance of from 250 to 300 miles which would give a longer open season for transportation on the Great Slave Lake. That seems reasonably practicable. There are no insurmountable difficulties in the construction of light railways as engineers have proved time and time again, and of course there would be a longer water transport season. Then, the present water route can supply reasonably efficient transportation if certain slight improvements are made. By blasting away a few rocks in the channel of the Great Bear River, the rapid running water that now exists, not to an extent that prevents navigation but rather which is too rapid for larger boats, can be changed and there could also be development in the boats, as well. Tbere can be no doubt whatever that the present boats are inefficient and ill-suited for the purpose of this transportation and before we launch on any great capital expenditure on railways,, in addition to those we already have, it is to be hoped this rather simple and comparatively cheap experiment will be tried and that boats will be tried out there, operating on a definite cost basis.

The other possibility that should be borne in mind before any elaborate capital expenditure is involved in railway construction through that country is the possibility of very great developments in air transportation. Already gasoline costs have been greatly reduced and gasoline costs in the north country are a tremendous factor in the cost of air transportation. You will realize that they must refuel every three or four hundred miles, carrying freight, and that necessitates the shipping in to various refuelling points throughout the north, an enormous quantity of gasoline through the short period of navigation. That is a costly process. In addition to the possibility of cheaper gasoline, we must not forget the rapid strides being made in the efficiency of aircraft and the possibility that the cost of carrying freight in that way will be greatly reduced.

An interesting development which has gone hand in hand with the mineral development in the Great Bear Lake is that of the production of oil and gasoline at the wells of the Imperial Oil Company within the Arctic Circle, near Fort Norman.

The existence of oil in this area was known even before Hearne discovered the mineral deposit at Great Bear Lake. When Alexander MacKenzie went down the river he discovered the evidence of oil anal it has been known ever since. It was not until 1921 that the first well was drilled there and kept, because being some fifteen hundred miles away from the nearest city, Edmonton, it did not seem to have commercial use. With the development of the mining field, the aeroplane was called into use and in 1931, crews and equipment went into this area and throughout 1931 the small refining plant was established and some 10,000 gallons of gasoline and an equivalent amount of fuel oil were produced. The Diesel engines in operation at Great Bear Lake today are operated on the fuel oil produced at the Arctic Circle at Fort Norman.

The rapid growth of that enterprise, along with the air and other enterprises of the north, is illustrated by the fact that during the past summer, the production of 10,000 gallons of fuel oil had jumped to 65,000 gallons of fuel oil and 42,000 gallons of gasoline. Incidentally, the price of gasoline had dropped from $2.50 a gallon to .90 a gallon, an extremely important factor in the cost of transportation.

I have reason to believe that there is a possibility of the refining of aviation gasoline in the near future which would make a vast difference in the cost of the transportation of metal concentrates by air.

In speaking of the wealth that will be produced, and it certainly will be produced, the wealth will be produced by mining development on the ground and not by any stock market manipulation, either in Toronto or in Montreal. Mining development requires financing and legitimate financing is definitely the very lifeblood of the industry. But, already there are glib parasites who are selling to the public securities in enterprises based on claims in this area that haven't the slightest possibility of success. There are tremendous possibilities of success in that area and it depends, as in every other industry and business adventure, on the skill, the integrity and the character of the men who carry out the work as to whether or not it will be a success. Large sums of money will be required in that area. It can not be emphasized too often that wealth to Canada in the mining indust comes from the ground and not from the quotations of the stock on any given day. Speculative interest has its legitimate purpose in giving an opportunity to those who have bought stock and held it during the development period to make the profits to which they are entitled ifs the venture is a success, but it is the hard, honest work on, the ground that is going to develop the Great Bear Lake area or any other area in Canada today.

There are other ways in which this great country has been charged. They are most vividly illustrated perhaps by the change in the organization of the church and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in that area. I flew from Great Bear Lake to Fort Norman on the Arctic Circle with Bishop Breynat of the Roman Catholic Church. He told me that he was making his annual round by aeroplane and in three or four weeks time he covered every one of the Roman Catholic missions in the north, a trip that used to take three or four years. Bishop Geddes, the Anglican bishop, is using aircraft in exactly the same way. General MacBrien, of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police travels by aeroplane through the north, visiting every one of the mounted police posts through the MacKenzie and the Yukon Districts in a few weeks, a feat that by any other means of transportation would have taken him two or three years.

So, in closing, let me say that the part of the riddle which has already been solved and that is the discovery of the metal and the certainty of its existence, is also a challenge to every one of us in this part of the country. If any of you are feeling that the depression is too hard to bear and you can make the trip up there, you will get into an atmosphere of optimism and hope and certainty of results that is most stimulating to anyone. Also, you will see something that is a lesson for everyone in this part of Canada. No country in the world has received such direct benefit from the use of aircraft as we have and already in that northland, potential millions have been opened up by this means alone. With the enormous wealth they have created for use, surely, I think, we could pay a little more attention to the possibility of similar stimulating business in this part of Canada by the use of the same type of transportation. This problem of transportation in the north will be solved. There are the two ways it can be solved. One is by water transportation; the other is by air. Either, I am satisfied, will meet the purposes until the area is proven beyond its present point. When that time does come, and there is no reason why it need be very long if the small expenditure necessary on the Great Bear River and on the purchase of boats is carried out, when that is done, I am satisfied we are going to see the opening of another area which will do much to add to the wealth and prosperity of this country. (Applause.)